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THO MATERIAL, WHY 
NOT IMMORTAL? 

BY 

OBERLIN SMITH 




BOSTON 
RICHARD G. BADGER 

THE GORHAM PRESS 



Copyright, 1921, by Oberlin Smith 



All Rights Reserved 




Made in the United States of America 



The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A. 



SEP 12 '21 

§)CI.A624a90 



TO THE MEMORY OF MY DEARLY BELOVED WIFE, 
AND TO HER HOPE AND TO MY HOPE 
OF OUR MEETING IN THE GREAT 
UNKNOWABLE BEYOND 



A FOREWORD 



In the Andover Review for September, 
1887, was published an article of mine entitled 
"If Material, Why Mortal?" At various times 
since then I have given numerous reprints to 
friends and have been frequently offered sug- 
gestions that it be amplified and published in 
book form. Among these was an eminent and 
well-known Bishop who, like various other clerical 
friends, could see nothing in it antagonistic to 
the Christian religion. 

In this little book I am following the sugges- 
tions above named, and have thought it best to 
publish the original article verbatim, making it 
the first chapter of the present book. Certain 
ideas which seemed somewhat prophetic have 
proved to be truly such, as e.g., certain improve- 
ments in the phonograph which really make it an 
instrument of precision, rather than merely a 
"horrible toy." 

In the following chapters are offered various 
5 



6 



A Foreword 



analogies based upon discoveries in science made 
since the first article was written. Attention is 
also called to a few of the other books upon 
Immortality which have appeared in recent years, 
but no attempt is made at a complete list of such 
literature. 

It is to be hoped that no readers of this little 
guesswork essay will regard the ideas suggested 
as attempted proof of the truth of any new 
theories. They can not be convincing because 
they are not based upon accepted certainties ; they 
are simply speculations as to what may possibly 
be, their probability being strengthened where 
feasible by analogies in the shape of numerous 
facts in the domain of science with which we are 
all more or less familiar. 

Oberlin Smith. 

Bridgeton, New Jersey. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I Immortal Hopes n 

II Thirty-Three Years Later .... 34 

III Some Conclusions 57 



THO MATERIAL, WHY NOT 
IMMORTAL? 



THO MATERIAL, WHY NOT 
IMMORTAL? 



CHAPTER I 

IMMORTAL HOPES 

"Papa, papa, why did he die?" sobbingly cried 
my little girl as she buried her pet squirrel. And 
this is but the questioning wail that has rung 
down through the ages, from countless thousands 
of older tongues and sadder hearts than hers — 
why did he die ? — yet no response has come. 

That other question, "Shall he live again?" 
the anxious, hopeful, fearful riddle at which 
humanity is ever guessing, seems solved to many 
an earnest soul who, by faith alone, cries "Yes !" 
To many other just as truth-seeking minds the 
yes is but a wish, a prayer, a hope. To yet an- 
other class of minds the answer can be but "no," — 
brings it them the resignation of despair, or wel- 
come they their nirvana as a pleasant sleep. 

ii 



12 Tho Material, Why Not Immortal? 

Taking the human race as a whole, it has, and 
probably always has had, a most earnest desire 
to be immortal. It has often been said that this 
desire is in itself one of the strongest proofs of 
its own fulfillment. However cogent this evidence 
may be, it can but be regarded as circumstantial. 
A stronger proof perhaps would be the unlikeli- 
hood of such seeming cruelty on the part of a 
Creator as would be shown by the creation of 
a mortal race, many of whose members are cut 
off almost ere they enter conscious life, and many 
others of which live on but to one unending round 
of toil and misery and pain. This, too, is only 
circumstantial evidence, — and the great riddle 
goes on, challenging every new truth seeker to 
attack it, but repulsing all alike. 

The question does not seriously trouble the 
unthinking herd. They believe in their heavens 
and their purgatories, their hells and their 
nirvanas, just as they happen to be born believing, 
and just as they happen to be taught to believe 
after they are born. Those men and women who 
think for themselves, however, may perhaps be 
fitly classed as either spiritists, agnostics, or ma- 



Immortal Hopes 13 

terialists — in other words, as immortalists, don't- 
know-anything-ists, or mortalists. The first know 
all (or a good deal) about spirit; the second are 
serenely content to wait till they find out some- 
thing; the third know that there is no spirit. The 
first class are presumably the happiest. They 
need no pity, and are only to be congratulated 
upon having been born with the kind of mind 
which can unquestionably feel the certainty of a 
happy immortality. Such people can hardly claim 
superior virtue for believing, as they were all 
created with a capacity to believe ; nor should they 
condemn those with whom such faith is an utter 
impossibility, — whose minds are so constructed 
that they cannot know a thing unless it is demon- 
strated with the certainty of a proposition in 
geometry. The third class mentioned (to speak 
next of them) are certainly not to be felicitated 
upon a belief which condemns them to utter anni- 
hilation at any instant that a blind chance may 
decree to be the fitting one. They are, on the 
other hand, hardly to be pitied, for they seem as 
happy in their creed as do the immortals in theirs. 
Though frequently men of science, they fail to 



14 Tho Material, Why Not Immortal? 

be scientific, by jumping at conclusions which are 
but assumptions; and acquire a superior knowl- 
edge only by knowing too much. 

To try to show that these materialists are but 
part-way scientists, who stop satisfied with such 
facts as agree with their own preconceived creeds 
and fail to recognize certain glorious possibilities 
which other facts may point the way to, is the ob- 
ject of this article. It may here be said that it 
is not the wish of the writer to ventilate any 
theological views which he may hold; nor does 
he intend to promulgate any positive theory re- 
garding the nature of the spiritual life. He de- 
sires merely to point out certain scientific possi- 
bilities which to some minds may seem probabili- 
ties, and the consideration of which may be of 
comfort to some earnest, honest souls who can 
by no possible means accept any of the old faiths, 
yet who have left to them humanity's common 
yearning for a life to come. These men and 
women belong to the second class above men- 
tioned, the great and growing army of honest 
doubters. They wish to believe only what is true, 
but the stern facts (such of them as are facts) of 
modern science have unsettled many of their in- 



Immortal Hopes 15 

herited beliefs, and have so far failed to provide 
acceptable substitutes. For these people only is 
suitable such consolation as may be derived from a 
somewhat spiritualized view of some phases of 
nature. This consolation the spiritists do not need 
and the materialists do not want. It may further 
be said, in explanation of what is to follow, that 
all reference to scriptural teachings has been pur- 
posely omitted, and an attempt has been made to 
view the subject from the standpoint of the engi- 
neer and the physicist only. 

Taking such a view, and reasoning from ob- 
served facts and phenomena, many men of a 
scientific cast of mind feel that they can but admit 
the truth of the proposition: (a) It is possible 
that there exists nothing but matter and motion. 
Such believers are possible materialists, and 
among them are many profound and conscientious 
thinkers. Those who go further, and say that 
there certainly exists nothing but matter and 
motion, are positively materialists, and are usu- 
ally supposed to hold the belief that there can be 
no immortality, — that spirit is non-existent. 

These materialists are, in their way, just as 
narrow-minded and unscientific as are some of the 



1 6 Tho Material, Why Not Immortal? 

extremists whom they condemn among theolo- 
gians. They seem incapable of taking a broad 
view of Nature, and judge her ways through the 
medium of their own little vision, forgetting that 
some of the wondrous processes hourly going on 
around them in organic life, or perhaps in the 
domains of chemistry or electricity merely, are 
as marvelous, and as difficult to understand, as 
would be the truth of the following proposition : 
(b) Granted, that all things are but matter and 
motion, it is possible for man's existence to con- 
tinue after death as an immortal spirit. 

Assuming, then, the truth of proposition, (a) 
(without which assumption further argument 
would be unnecessary), let us seek for evidence in 
support of proposition (b), as the consolation de- 
sired in case the possibility implied in (a) should 
turn out to be a certainty. Some of this evidence 
it is hoped that the earnest student of nature may 
find in what follows, — it being remembered that 
for the sake of the argument do we assume the 
truth of the vital claim of materialism, — the ex- 
istence of naught but matter and motion. 

The objection offered by many materialists to 
any such possibility as the one under considera- 



Immortal Hopes 17 

tion; that the visible matter of which the brain 
and nerves (wherein, by common consent, we all 
localize the mind) is composed is evidently dis- 
integrated after death, and enters into new chemi- 
cal forms, — or perhaps even into the brains of 
other individuals. The answer to this is, in the 
first place, that (c) the matter which we see in 
the dead brain may not be all of the matter which 
belonged to the matter-motion of the mind for- 
merly seated therein, and may be its non-essential 
part only. In the second place, (d) the motion 
part of mind may, after the brain is dead, be 
acting partly or wholly upon other matter, in other 
forms, and yet retain its individuality. The truth 
of these two propositions might have hardly been 
conceivable a century lago, but the marvelous 
scientific discoveries of a few decades past have 
furnished numerous analogies which act as hints 
to further thought, and help to enlarge our con- 
ceptive powers, so to speak, in a remarkable 
degree. A few of these hints are, somewhat dis- 
connectedly, given in the succeeding paragraphs. 

We know but little of the relation of mind to 
brain, and that little consists chiefly of the fact 
that the gray matter, forming the outer, con- 



1 8 Tho Material, Why Not Immortal? 

voluted part of the organ, receives and in some 
way stores up or records the sensations which are 
telegraphed to it, as it were, by the nerves and 
by the filaments of white substance which form 
the interior of the brain. Whether this recording 
is done by permanently changing the shape of 
certain particles of the matter, as in the tin-foil 
of the phonograph; or whether a set of special 
permanent motions are established which can at 
any time be "thrown into gear" again, so to speak, 
with the nerve fibres, to repeat the sensation; or 
whether there are a set of chemical changes made, 
as upon the paper ribbon of the Bain telegraph, 
or the plate of the photograph; or what else may 
happen, we do not know. We do know that a 
great many of the sensations experienced through 
life are stored up, and there is a strong probability 
that all of them are, because great numbers may 
be reproduced, and we cannot say of any particu- 
lar one that it will not be recalled by a proper 
association of ideas. This process constitutes 
education and memory, and is the means of all 
knowledge and consciousness. A crude illustra- 
tion of this action is found in the working of the 
phonograph, where the sound-waves in infinite 



Immortal Hopes 19 

variety of combination, are transmitted by the 
air to the instrument, there recorded permanently 
upon tin-foil and afterwards reproduced as often 
as desired and retransmitted upon air-waves to 
where they are wanted by some listening ear. A 
more striking analogy would be found by taking 
that to-be-invented instrument of the future, a 
transmitting phonograph or recording-telephone, 
or "telephonograph," as it might, perhaps, better 
be called. The gray matter of the brain would 
here be represented by the tin-foil (or the enor- 
mously better recording material that will prob- 
ably be substituted for it, when the phonograph 
shall cease to be but a horrible toy and shall 
develop into a form more worthy of one of the 
greatest and most original inventions of this or 
any other century), while the connecting nerve 
filaments would be represented by the telephonic 
wires to and from the distant points communicated 
with. The electric current would, of course, 
represent the "nervous-fluid," whatever that 
may be. 

Carrying on the analogy of the phonograph, 
an illustration may be made of the idea expressed 
in proposition (c), by supposing a sheet of thick 



20 Tho Material, Why Not Immortal? 

paper to be used instead of tin-foil whereon to 
emboss the minute indentations representing the 
sound vibrations. Suppose this paper to be care- 
fully burned so as to leave a film of ash, such as we 
have all seen in the fireplace after burning a piece 
of newspaper, the printed words thereon still be- 
ing plainly legible. This film would have upon 
it the original phonographic record, and yet it 
would not be the visible material on which this 
record was embossed. It would be but a part, 
and a very small part, of that material, and, ap- 
parently, the most delicate and ethereal portion, — 
though, of course, chemically speaking, really the 
most earthy. It would be easy to imagine a sheet 
of material thus embossed, of such a nature that 
the outer part, constituting the principal bulk, 
would fall off in visible dead ashes, whilst the film 
containing the record would be so thin and light 
as to float almost invisibly away upon a breath of 
air. And here the suggestive thought comes in 
that its visibility or invisibility would depend, 
after all, upon the kind of eyes that looked for it, 
— and in how dim a light they gazed, for we mor- 
tals see some things but as "through a glass, dark- 
ly," the Scriptures tell us. We have in the above 



Immortal Hopes 21 

illustration a rough analogy with the idea ex- 
pressed in proposition (c) of the actual preserva- 
tion of a portion, perhaps almost infinitely small, 
of the material of the brain, — enough, however, 
to contain the mysterious record which we call 
consciousness, and memory, and knowledge. 
Who can say that this is absolutely impossible, in 
the light of what we already know about the va- 
rious states of matter, and more especially in the 
darkness of what we don't know? 

Our forefathers knew of the solid state of some 
things and the liquid state of others; and presently 
they found that air and other gases were things. 
Then came the discovery that one state might 
sometimes be changed into one or perhaps two of 
the other states, — that wax would melt, and that 
water would freeze or boil. Now we know with 
reasonable certainty that any substance may exist 
in any one of the three states; and the brilliant 
experiments of Professor Crookes and others, in 
radiometry, are giving us glimpses into the bor- 
der-land of a possible fourth state of matter. 
What other states there still may be beyond, we 
as yet have no conception. Neither can we con- 
ceive of the characteristics peculiar to these pos- 



22 Tho Material, Why Not Immortal? 

sible undiscovered states, and although we might 
suppose a series of increasingly ethereal condi- 
tions to be less and less capable of retaining any 
kind of permanent impressions, or cycles of 
specialized motions (just as is a gas less capable 
than a liquid or a liquid than a solid), yet we 
cannot feel sure. This is especially so in a time 
when the hypothetical luminiferous ether itself is 
thought by some eminent philosophers to be only 
matter in a condition wholly different from any- 
thing with which our senses are familiar, and in 
some respects even more like a solid than a gas, 
although lying at the outer boundaries of im- 
ponderability and tenuity. Such remarkable 
qualities as are attributed to it by Sir William 
Thomson, in his vortex-atom theory, where it is 
supposed to be a sort of jelly-like solid, incom- 
pressible and perfectly frictionless, are suggestive, 
if nothing more. While still considering proposi- 
tion (c) it may be well to answer a possible criti- 
cism to the effect that an exceedingly minute por- 
tion of matter could hardly contain all that is 
stored up in a human mind, by asking how it is that 
the nucleus of a certain microscopic germ may 
hold within itself all that by heredity can come to 



Immortal Hopes 23 

an individual, in mind and body, — special talents, 
capacities for good and evil, a hundred peculiari- 
ties of temperament and face and voice. And, 
too, this same germ enshrouds all that goes to 
make the difference between a Newton or a Shake- 
speare, and the snake or toad which may be the 
product of some certain other like appearing 
germ. 

Should there, however, be no truth in the above 
hypothesis (c) we have perhaps more probability 
in proposition (d) , wherein the motion part of the 
brain-action is supposed to continue with new 
matter to act upon. This does not seem so absurd 
when we consider its analogy with a phonograph 
record-sheet, which should be made of a substance 
that would petrify so that all its original con- 
stituent matter would disappear and be replaced 
by new and more permanent material, while its 
shape would remain unchanged in every detail. 
Another illustration of this idea may be found in 
the well-known fact of the transposition of matter 
in living organism, even our own bodies, and the 
total substitution of new material every few 
months without any change of form. This trans- 
position takes place slowly in the cases known to 



24 Tho Material, Why Not Immortal? 

us, where solids and liquids are concerned, but 
we know of no reason why it should not occur 
very rapidly, at the death of the brain with some 
higher form of matter as its subject. 

The above illustrations are adapted more par- 
ticularly to the idea of the brain records being 
a matter of shape, which somehow (perhaps in a 
manner analogous to the phonographic action) 
reproduces at the proper time the necessary 
motion to be sent into the nerve-fibres. The whole 
thing may be easier of conception, however, if we 
regard it all as a question of continuous special 
motions, and the material substance involved as 
merely a medium of the motion. A third idea 
was mentioned (see page 16) in connection with 
brain records, namely: chemical action. This it 
is hardly worth while to consider separately, in 
these days when even chemical action seems as if it 
might be but a question of dynamics; and when we 
are beginning to call upon atoms and molecules 
(whatever such may be) to wheel into line under 
the command of the mechanical engineer. 

Whether, then, this assumed continuity of in- 
dividual brain-action goes on with new matter as 
a medium, or whether it be a part of the old, does 



Immortal Hopes 25 

not signify. The probabilities would seem to be 
in favor of its being an ever-changing one, just 
as is the substance of our earthly bodies. In any 
case we are met with the grand and pregnant 
possibility that the universe teems with spirit-life 
which is but the logical continuance in a higher 
state of that which was born and nurtured here 
in a lower; that finer and more delicate forms of 
matter are as capable of caring for and localizing 
the wondrous set of motions called a "mind," as 
are the few ounces of brain-cells that a chemist 
may reduce in an hour to common earths and 
gases; that such a development from little begin- 
nings to great endings is a human soul, with its 
glorious capabilities and its infinite aspirations, 
can find as fit a home in a higher state of matter 
as in its lowly earth-born domicile, whose crude 
and faulty construction protects not its divinely 
formed inmate from being snuffed out like a flame 
at the touch of disease or accident. 

In accordance with the law of recompenses 
which seems to prevail largely throughout nature, 
the very enlightenment of the present age, which 
has begun to cast doubt upon and weaken the 
steadfastness of many comforting old beliefs, has 



26 Tho Material, Why Not Immortal? 

given us some hints toward a knowledge of the 
luminiferous ether, and has shown us that the 
universe must be full of media, which are capable 
of maintaining and transmitting forms of energy 
transcendant in their delicacy or sublime in their 
immensity. 

If, as will be explained more at length in suc- 
ceeding pages, certain of these media can easily 
keep records of all the disturbances in their sub- 
stances which we term sights and sounds, each 
perfectly individualized though interpenetrating 
to others, nothing too unimportant for notice, 
though it be but "a sparrow's fall," does it not 
seem, by an ordinary process of analogical reason- 
ing, to be more than possible — even probable — 
that the sets of movements which constitute the 
phenomena of mind are also taken care of? Why 
should these, the most important of all, and the 
ones upon which depends the value of all the rest, 
be neglected? I say the value of all the rest, be- 
cause we can conceive of no value or purpose in 
the creation and continuance of the universe 
without intelligence to observe, appreciate and 
enjoy. And surely the grandeur of creation would 
be sadly wasted on us (and on such as we in other 



Immortal Hopes 27 

worlds) were our existence limited to the stunted, 
uncertain and abbreviated condition which we 
call mortality. 

That matter is capable of an infinite variety of 
motions, its particles acting and reacting upon one 
another throughout the universe, seems to be an 
accepted fact. Just as the ripples flow outward 
from the pebble thrown into the sea, to a distance 
we cannot estimate, and perhaps "go on forever," 
even so flow on the sound-waves from every tone 
of nature's organ, — and who shall say when and 
where they absolutely cease? And if our hollow 
ball of air should fail them, by proving to have a 
definite outer limit, and the outlying ether should 
take them up, it would surely be no more strange 
than the fact that such waves can be transferred to 
the piece of twine in a "lover's telephone." In- 
deed, to use the beautiful words of Professor 
Jevons, "our whole atmosphere" (and the firma- 
ment beyond, I would add) "may be one vast 
library, on whose pages are forever written all 
that man has ever said or even whispered. There, 
in their mutable but unerring characters, mixed 
with the earliest as well as the latest sighs of mor- 
tality, stand forever recorded vows unredeemed, 



28 Tho Material, Why Not Immortal? 

promises unfulfilled, perpetuating in the united 
movements of each particle the testimony of man's 
changeful will." An analogous fancy in regard 
to light-rays may, I think, be found somewhere in 
Dr. Dick's works, though I do not remember in 
which, or even if it be original with him. He 
speaks of the probability of all events which have 
ever occurred upon the earth being now actually 
visible at some place in the universe — just where, 
depending of course upon when the event hap- 
pened, and upon how fast have travelled the 
particular set of light-waves which once made it 
visible here. The only conditions, therefore, 
which are necessary for the grand panorama of 
the world's history to be shown to a sentient 
being, while it is actually happening, is that he 
shall have a sufficiently delicate eyesight, and 
shall be able to fly through space somewhat faster 
than does light, that he may catch up, so to speak, 
with any event that he desires to witness. A 
speculation of similar character may, if I remem- 
ber rightly, be found in one of General Mitchell's 
astronomical lectures. That these startling fan- 
cies may be sober facts ; that all space may be one 
great phonograph and one great photograph, 



Immortal Hopes 29 

wherein has been and shall be forever recorded 
the history of the universe, is no more inherently 
unbelievable to the student of science than are a 
thousand phenomena which are daily going on 
before his eyes. 

If, then, when Newton's apple fell, the earth 
rose to meet it, just its own share of the distance 
and every moon and star responded to the dis- 
turbance; if, as would seem to be the case, each 
atom in the universe is acting upon or influencing 
in some way every other atom, by sound-waves, 
or heat-waves, or light-waves (visible or actinic), 
by waves of electricity, by magnetism, by gravita- 
tion, by a hundred other mysterious forms of 
energy about which we have not yet learned; if 
this influence of matter upon matter is, in kind, 
independent of its quantity, however minute, and 
its distance apart, however vast; if this action has 
gone and can go on through all time, however 
infinitely long; if it is all-permeating and can go 
on over and through other trains of action, as 
ripple rises over billow, as in multiplex telegraphy 
message crosses over message, each maintaining 
its individuality intact; if, furthermore, all these 
actions can be infinitely vast or infinitely delicate 



30 Tho Material, Why Not Immortal? 

— then why should not the wondrous and compli- 
cated train of motions which we suppose to consti- 
tute a human mind, create upon some form of 
matter, within or around the brain which is their 
mortal seat, an influence as subtle or subtler than 
themselves? And why should not this new train 
of action have, in its turn, a power to grow and 
develop to infinity, free from the trammels of its 
earth-born parent? And why should not this 
entity be called an immortal spirit? 

If the proposition that matter can be spirit, and 
spirit is but matter, were more than an hypothesis, 
and if the time had yet come for its demonstration, 
it is difficult to see why the theologian should be 
stricken with horror thereat. The conventional 
theologian undoubtedly would be so stricken, just 
as he was when Galileo's mighty arm revolved the 
earth (against his mandate) and sent him whirl- 
ing with it, out from his ancient matrix, until he 
struck the rocks of modern Geology (fossil meet- 
ing fossils) when the new and greater horror 
overpowered the lesser till it in turn dwindled to 
a rudiment in its struggle for existence with the 
greatest horror of all, Evolution. And yet, no 
more than in the proved facts of Astronomy and 



Immortal Hopes 31 

Geology, or the probabilities of the Development 
theory, is there aught in the possibilities of what 
we may term Spiritual-Materialism to conflict 
with the great truths of morality and religion; 
with a pure life and the Christian's hopeful death; 
with the existence of a happy Heaven and the 
ever-presence of a loving God. 

If we search for the difference between our 
theologians' traditional spirit-spirit and our hypo- 
thetical matter-spirit, we shall find it to be in name 
only, as far as character and attributes are con- 
cerned; but the latter has the merit of being 
conceivable and capable of being reasoned about, 
while his is but an abstraction — at least it seems 
so to the class of minds for whose edification 
these pages are prepared. These earnest souls 
are living interrogation-points seeking always to 
penetrate the Arcana of Nature and of Fate. 
Perchance to them mostly, rather than to the 
Spiritists on the one hand or the Materialists on 
the other, must we look for the gradual evolution 
of those facts which, all in good time, will make 
so sure and easy the reconciliation between Re- 
ligion and Science. These men are asking such 
questions as those we have here discussed, and, 



32 Tho Material, Why Not Immortal? 

looking at the mighty enginery of their Creator 
with a reverence impossible to the mere material- 
ist, they would further ask : Why, in the light of 
this truth-finding nineteenth century, should we 
continue to degrade matter as but of "earth, 
earthy?" What but the action of motion upon 
matter are all the sounds and sights that stir our 
emotions and rouse our souls to highest pitch of 
sorrow or joy? Does it not, indeed, almost deify 
matter to us to know that by certain purely me- 
chanical peculiarities of its arrangement and 
movement we have the sunlight or the shade ; the 
painted glories of the evening sky or the darkness 
of a midnight storm; the smile of love or scowl of 
hate; pictured faces of dear ones in the photo- 
graph, or their voices over wires from far away; 
the roar of thunder or the cricket's chirp; the 
din of battle, with its shrieks of pain, or the 
heaven-born cadences of a Nilsson or a Malibran? 
And do we not know that these things, and all the 
other wondrous work going on among the ele- 
ments, in the domains of physics and chemistry, 
or crystallography, or plant-life and sentient or- 
ganic life, in the realms of astronomic space, 
where a great world may be ages in whirling about 



Immortal Hopes 33 

its orbit, or where the ether atoms may propel 
radiant energy by traversing their little paths 
eight hundred trillions of times in a single second, 
are only the changes that the chimes of God are 
ringing upon that which we call matter? Being 
certain, furthermore, that matter is the vehicle 
and agent of all our consciousness, and that only 
through it as a tool do we feel or know or act 
of think; that here in our earthly life it is the 
medium of hope and joy, of conscience and of 
love; that its capabilities are so vast and yet so 
delicate; — shall we, can we, positively say that 
the matter which has so well served us here shall 
fail us when "the silver cord be loosed, or the 
golden bowl be broken," — when the heart shall 
cease to beat and the busy brain to throb ? Know- 
ing all the brilliant, but as yet dimly revealed pos- 
sibilities which we can even now catch glimpses of 
as we stand on the border-land of science, can we 
do less than seek consolation for those whose 
faith reaches but to the conceivable, with the 
ever-recurring question, and the answer attempted 
in these pages, If material, why mortal? 



CHAPTER TWO 



THIRTY-THREE YEARS LATER 

Soon after writing Chapter One, but before it 
was published, I happened to see for the first 
time a copy of that rather remarkable book 
"The Unseen Universe" issued some eight or 
ten years earlier, and better known in England 
than America. Its gifted authors, P. G. Tait 
and Balfour Stuart, take the same general view 
that we are herein considering regarding the 
potency of matter to include spirit, but their 
treatment of the subject is different enough not 
to tempt me to cry out, with Sydney Smith, against 
"those confounded ancients who were always 
stealing our ideas." The general conception of 
all this is probably nothing new, as doubtless 
many thinkers have also speculated upon the 
influence of brain-action, upon lifeless matter 
never being wholly lost. 

The authors in question, however, have gone 
more deeply into the subject, although their 

34 



Thirty-Three Years Later 35 

startling and ingenious hypothesis of spirit-life 
existing in a dual universe, which is, in a sense, 
the complement of this, and in which a train of 
motions are set up (through the ethereal medium 
between) by the movements taking place here, 
making our spirits contemporary duplicates of 
our minds, as it were, may perhaps not be as 
plausible as the idea expressed in these pages of 
continuity of existence merely — the spirit succeed- 
ing the mind after the death of the body. Neither 
does their view of the probable final extinction of 
the visible universe appear as tenable as one 
which would allow for an infinite number of new 
sidereal systems to grow and disappear, during 
and throughout an infinity of time and space. 

I am not familiar with much of the recent lit- 
erature upon this subject but have looked over a 
number of the little volumes upon immortality 
published in Boston under the general title of the 
"Ingersoll Lectures." It is hardly worth while 
to consider them here in an analytical way, as 
there seems but little in them in harmony with the 
idea of a spirit emanating from earthy matter. 
I find a few of them denying any existence of a 
future life. Some of these writers believe in the 



36 >Tho Material, Why Not Immortal? 

immortality of the Race, and the existence of a 
universal rather than an individual consciousness. 
Most of them, however, are glowing with the 
hope and the firm belief in an individual eternal 
future. None of them attempt to show how such 
a future could be attained with the embodiment 
of only matter and motion. 

During this last third of a century, so far as 
I am aware, nothing new has been added to the 
world's knowledge in actual proof of Immortality, 
altho there have been written interesting specu- 
lations which are but speculative — even if based 
upon positive facts. In the way of suggestive 
analogies, however, several new and remarkable 
discoveries in the realm of physics have been 
given to the world. 

Among these is the development of radium, 
that curious element which seems not only to 
have stored in itself an enormous amount of 
energy but to be capable of giving this forth in a 
remarkable way by actually sending out its par- 
ticles (said to be some billions per second) with- 
out much apparent exhaustion of its substance, and 
this at enormous and unthought of velocities, 
ranging from 10,000 to 100,000 miles per second. 



Thirty-Three Years Later 37 

Such action is suggestive of the use of small 
quantities of matter in an unexpected way. 

Another remarkable development is the practice 
of wireless telegraphy, wherein the matter con- 
stituting the sending and receiving instruments, 
together with the matter or non-matter which 
some of us term the ether of space, is subjected 
to a variety of motions in the form of vibrations 
which may include thoughts of all kinds as well 
as speech in any language for expressing them. 
And these are propagated thru thousands of miles 
of space in a few moments of time. 

Still more remarkable is the success of wireless 
telephony, where words or any other sounds are 
transmitted between the earth and flying-ma- 
chines, in either direction, thru miles of space, 
regardless we assume of the presence of the 
atmosphere therein. 

The phonograph in its various forms, referred 
to in the previous chapter as but a "toy," has 
become one of the wonders of the world — with its 
power to store up any kind of sound whatsoever, 
for an indefinite time, and in such a way that it 
can be duplicated from the original matrix to any 
extent desired. Furthermore, all of these dupli- 



38 Tho Material, Why Not Immortal? 

cate copies of such sound-records may be stored so 
as to perfectly reproduce at any future time all 
of the sounds recorded, always exactly alike and 
available one-thousand or ten-thousand years 
hence, as well as now. Here is a case of a mere 
machine, and a very simple one, which has, within 
certain limits, an infinitely better and more ac- 
curate memory, so to speak, than has the keenest 
human brain. 

Another wonder of the world, altho still in its 
infancy, is the making of moving pictures. The 
beautiful, yet simple, machinery employed in this 
art does for vision what the phonograph does for 
hearing. By its use all and any kind of motion 
occurring in animate and inanimate objects is 
shown with almost life-like accuracy and, as with 
the phonograph, a duplication to any amount of 
the original picture can be obtained. Here, too, 
we can get repetition to any amount, at present 
or at future times as the centuries pass. This art 
altho now somewhat crude will doubtless be 
greatly improved, so that all of the most delicate 
shades and colors in nature will be reproduced — 
instead of the pictures being made in the black- 
and-white only, as now. 



Thirty-Three Years Later 39 

Furthermore, it probably will be possible in 
the future to synchronize the work of this ma- 
chine with the phonograph so that not only 
motions, but sounds accompanying them, will 
together be produced, thus giving a complete re- 
production of co-related sights and sounds, hap- 
pening in the wilds of nature or by humanity in 
all of its phases, together with the action of other 
living creatures. An incidental feature with both 
of the instruments in question is the advantage of 
being able to alter the speed at will, thus produc- 
ing faster or slower action in moving things, and 
sounds of higher or lower pitch, than evolved 
originally. 

Various other machines, having almost super- 
human qualities in their own particular line of 
effort, are of the type represented by the Jacquard 
Loom; the automatic player used on pianos and 
organs; the monotype machine for casting and 
setting up type in printing offices, etc., etc. All of 
these machines obediently perform their work, 
and every time exactly alike, in obedience to an 
act of some human brain which, thru its nerves 
and finger muscles, has caused certain rows of 
holes, in specified positions, to be punched in rolls 



40 Tho Material, Why Not Immortal? 

of paper or sheets of cardboard. These holes 
afterwards govern the motions of warp-threads 
in weaving some beautiful and artistic fabric; or 
so control blasts of air as to actuate at the proper 
times the valves of an organ or the hammers of a 
piano ; or, in the type-machine, the position of the 
various moulds to be filled with molten metal — all 
obeying the will of the master brain and duplicat- 
ing its thought as desired. 

In the case of all the machines mentioned, from 
the phonograph down, we have an analogy of 
human memory. A certain thing is learned and, 
in the case of memory, can be repeated more or 
less perfectly, altho subject to eclipses and lapses, 
an indefinite number of times. With the machines 
in question, this memory is perfect and we are 
sure that whatever has happened can happen 
again at will, exactly the same way as originally. 

It is worthy of remark that all of these 
mechanisms are versatile, and usually not limited 
to any one act of memory. The phonograph can 
handle innumerable record-plates or cylinders; 
the picture-machine an indefinite number of films; 
and the other less important machines can per- 
form whatever is given them if supplied with the 



Thirty-Three Years Later 41 

rolls of paper or cards pertaining to each indi- 
vidual performance. 

As a striking analogy between human memory 
and the first named of these important machines, 
let us imagine a very small phonograph, which we 
engineers know would be entirely possible to 
produce, of the size say of an ordinary watch. 
Such a machine could be made which would utter 
a hundred or two words and would talk for 
a minute or two, loud enough to be understood 
by good ears. It could be placed in a small 
pigeon-hole say two inches square by one inch 
high and, furthermore, it might embody a little 
electric motor so that it could be stopped and 
started at will by a current in its wire connections. 

Further, if a million of these instruments were 
placed in rows of racks or cases grouped as closely 
together as possible in a room which would con- 
tain them, say about fourteen feet square by 
twelve feet high, each of these little machines 
would have a disk on which would be briefly re- 
corded some event as it occurred — or perhaps 
some argument upon any desired subject. To 
these suitable conducting wires would be so 
grouped that certain two or more of them would 



42 Tho Material, Why Not Immortal? 

contain associated ideas; that is to say, when one 
had said its say, its stopping would throw into 
action its mate nearby, or in some other part of 
the room. Thus the history of one event would 
be suggesting another one and so on, there being 
perhaps many strange combinations. 

The operator of all of this mechanism could, 
by touching a button, start any one of these little 
phonographs and it might start others — by wire- 
connection, or perhaps by sympathetically tuned 
sound-waves, or ether-waves. Another time some 
different touch would produce audibly a variety 
of other information, and so forth. In general, 
an apparatus of this kind would be a great 
memory machine with a record of a million events 
ready at hand, any one of which might appear 
and might cause others to appear. This whole 
affair may perhaps form a suggestive analogy of 
what we can imagine might take place, and per- 
haps does take place, in a living brain. 

An important fact in connection with this idea 
is that altho we have imagined a small room full 
of apparatus the same result with some analogous 
mechanism might all be contained in a tiny space 
of microscopic size, when using molecules, atoms 



Thirty-Three Years Later 43 

and electrons as the component parts of the ma- 
chinery, instead of the wheels, pivots and springs 
measured by visible distances, counted on one's 
pocket rule. 

Herein, it seems to me, lies the possibility and 
the hope that almost any desired effect of a 
psychological kind can be obtained in the most 
minute yet conceivable spaces because of the ex- 
ceeding smallness of the ultimate particles of 
matter and of the enormous speeds capable of 
attainment by these tiny entities. 

No anatomists or psychologists, nor the rest 
of us, have ever been able to give us an acceptable 
idea as to the modus operandi of the brain in 
storing up the impressions received in the past by 
one or more of the five senses, and yet we know 
that within any adult brain there must be millions 
of such impressions stored, any one of which may 
happen to be recalled by the function that we call 
memory; usually perhaps by some associated 
recollection. We never know which one of these 
millions may be called forth at any given time, 
but as we cannot know which ones may happen to 
be totally forgotten we must assume that they are 
all there. 



44 Tho Material, Why Not Immortal? 

If, as seems probable, these items of stored up 
knowledge are located, respectively, in certain 
parts of the brain and consist of certain motions 
and positions of the molecules and smaller units, 
constituting the brain cells involved, then we won- 
der how there can possibly be room for all the 
millions of these little storage places with their 
contents classified as might be letters in the pigeon- 
holes of a post office or in the card-indexes of a 
big library. The only plausible answer to this 
question may perhaps be conceived when we con- 
sider the minute size of these molecules, each 
made up of one or many atoms, which according 
to the estimates of Sir Ernest Rutherford have 
room to move about in spaces numbering about 
four sextillions (4 000 000 000 000 000 000 000) 
to the cubic inch of brain matter. Furthermore, 
each of these little atoms is supposed to contain 
or be composed of numerous "electrons," now 
thought to be the ultimate "units" of matter. 
When we consider these figures, altho we our- 
selves may not possess pocket-rules or calipers 
for measuring the diameters of the atoms, we can 
easily imagine that there is room in a brain for 
very many athletic performances by such tiny 



Thirty-Three Years Later 45 

particles. It must be remembered that if their 
positions in relation to each other govern the 
effect produced, a slight change in the position of 
one or more in a group may produce entirely dif- 
ferent results, just as would the transposition of 
a very few notes in an elaborate symphony. 

If we take a general view of Nature, with 
her wonderful variety of organic life and its 
constant reproduction, and of the marvels of 
crystallography in the realm of inorganic matter, 
positively knowing of no things but matter and 
motion, we can but conclude that all of the living 
phenomena known to us must be due to the 
various groupings and the relative motions of 
the cells in the organic being and of the molecules 
within these cells and of the atoms within the 
molecules and of the electrons within the atoms. 
Fortunately for our logic, these particles of mat- 
ter are so almost infinitely small that there is 
ample room for very many combinations. Con- 
sidering the laws of permutation we get by chang- 
ing the relative positions of the particles as well 
as the amplitude and the velocity of their motions, 
a number of effects produced which to our finite 



46 Tho Material, Why Not Immortal? 

minds are inconceivable. These effects, seen in 
the creation of the innumerable living creatures 
upon this earth, are sufficiently wonderful, but 
more so when we consider all the marvels of re- 
production and how the tiny seed or egg will only 
produce a creature of its own kind tfitfiout per- 
ceptible variation — unless by a long term of 
changing environment. Furthermore, we know 
that each of its descendants has the same power 
and thus the whole plan of nature grows more 
and more bewildering. How indeed are we to 
realize the ancestral power of the germ of a sea- 
urchin — itself an organism composed of very 
many atoms, and yet so small that there is space 
for a hundred-million of them or so in a cubic- 
inch? Furthermore, how curious is the fact that 
another tiny germ of a certain lowly weed is no 
smaller than an apparently similar one which pro- 
duces an enormous tree growing to thousands of 
years old ! 

In view of the facts regarding matter that have 
already been ascertained by the physicists and 
chemists, we can but regard any portion of it as 
an intricate machine with its particles always in 
motion, acting and re-acting upon each other. The 



Thirty-Three Years Later 47 

wonderful changes made in the action of these 
particles by different relative groupings of the 
different sorts of molecules is well known in 
chemistry, which indeed we may nowadays con- 
sider to really belong in the realm of mechanics. 
It is diffici.1t- to see why some changing of group- 
ing or proportion of certain particles instantly 
converts a harmless gas or liquid or solid from a 
nourishing food into a terrible explosive. 

Altho we cannot, and probably never shall, see 
the mechanism of the presumable interlocking of 
molecules in different ways, we may perhaps con- 
sider certain analogies which suggest some pos- 
sibilities of molecular mechanics. If, for instance, 
all of the numerous parts of an elaborately com- 
plicated repeating-watch were disassembled and 
then again put together as they belong, it would 
go on indefinitely with its usual motions. If, how- 
ever, some one, or a few, wheels that happened 
to fit in each other's bearings were transposed, a 
totally different and chaotic result will be pro- 
duced. The action of this watch comes thru a 
train of all the important members, from the 
main-spring down to the second-hand. The final 
motions are correct because so many teeth of a 



48 Tho Material, Why Not Immortal? 

driving cog-wheel will engage so many teeth of a 
driven one. If, however, some wrong number of 
teeth should by transposition occur in any wheel 
the relative motions would be entirely different. 
Many other analogies of this kind could be shown 
in the realm of mechanics, whether the component 
parts be large or small. 

We cannot see, in mechanical action or brain 
action, how one set of atoms grouped into a cer- 
tain form of molecule can interlock it, or a group 
of them, with some other molecule, or groups of 
them, in various ways and produce the marvel- 
ously different effects that ensue. We can hardly 
conceive of these small particles having projec- 
tions like wheel-teeth which engage as do the 
teeth in watch-wheels ; but we do know that there 
is some action there — and we expect it to remain 
a mystery. 

Even if we could comprehend the structure of 
molecules and understand their mechanical actions 
upon each other we have a greater mystery in the 
modern study of electricity. We seem to be learn- 
ing more about this marvelous agent, and we have 
divided it up into so-called electrons without any 
agreement among learned men as to whether each 



Thirty-Three Years Later 49 

electron is matter of some kind or merely some 
form of wave motion of other matter. Further- 
more, we cannot agree whether the stuff that 
seemingly fills all space outside of ponderable 
matter is matter itself in some other form, or 
whether it still should be called "ether," as it has 
been in recent years. There is some talk of its 
being electricity. Others fancy that currents of 
electricity may be holes in the ether; but so far 
we are very much in a fog. 

Referring to proposition (c) on page 17 of 
Chapter One, it would not seem inconceivable for 
enough of the tiny particles employed here in this 
life as a part of the machinery of the human 
brain to escape thru space and somewhere 
form the nucleus of a renewed life ; just how and 
where and when is beyond our conceptive powers. 
This idea does not support the doctrine of the 
"resurrection of the body," which by the absolute 
laws of physics is hardly tenable — especially in 
the case of a cannibal having eaten up a mission- 
ary, or where a man has fallen into a crucible of 
molten steel, at a temperature of three or four 
thousand degrees, and is instantly resolved into 



50 Tho Material, Why Not Immortal? 

a few elemental gases. Such latter event, it must 
be admitted, tends rather to weaken this whole 
proposition. 

Referring to proposition (d), upon the same 
page in Chapter One, we have a set of motions in 
the brain matter which are supposed to act upon 
some other matter somewhere in the space form- 
ing the universe, and in such a way as to retain 
their individuality. This seems to me more con- 
ceivable than does proposition (c). We might 
in this case, imagine a group of motion-waves 
sailing out afar into space, as fast as they were 
generated, to await the arrival of the soul from 
which they emanated. This fancy would seem to 
strengthen the idea of duality set forth in the 
"Unseen Universe." Here, however, as else- 
where thruout the marvelous planet on which we 
live, we at present at least must blindly grope, and 
merely hope for that we wish. 

There are in this world two ideas of which our 
finite minds can have no conception, and these are 
the infinity of time and the infinity of space. If 
time once began we immediately ask: "What 
happened before that?" If it is ever to stop: 
"What will happen after that?" And in the same 



Thirty-Three Years Later 51 

way regarding space, we ask if it goes out only 
to some certain place, perhaps decillions of miles 
from here: "What is beyond?"; if beyond that, 
"Where does it stop?" — and there we are, blind 
bats with no prospects of mortal vision. 

There are in nature many things which the 
most profound knowledge and study have not yet 
enabled us to understand; among these are gravi- 
tation, magnetism and electricity — but further 
searches into science may sometimes show us the 
why and how of these marvelous, unknown phe- 
nomena. We must, however, feel certain that 
time and space are infinite, altho with our present 
kind of brains, we have no idea even what the 
term means, nor shall we probably ever know in 
this world. 

It is certain that, in accordance with various 
facts discovered in the domains of Astronomy and 
Geology, this world as a planet is not infinite 
but that it had a definite beginning in some 
gaseous, nebular form and that it probably will 
end sometime in the same condition, perhaps being 
absorbed into our sun, or other suns. Doubtless 
the same may be said in regard to the other planets 
and their satellites in our solar system and, if so, 



52 Tho Material, Why Not Immortal? 

we must by analogy attribute a like finite begin- 
ning and end to other solar systems, the central 
suns of which are what we call the fixed stars. 

We call the whole group of these, which accord- 
ing to recent researches in celestial photography 
exist by thousands or millions, as suns of solar 
systems about which we know something but very 
little, "Our Universe." The questions then arise, 
Are there many such universes, and how many, 
and are they separated distinctly from each other? 
And all this leads us to the conundrum, "How 
large is space?" A tiny portion of this space is 
represented by the distance from here to the near- 
est star, Alpha Centauri, which is calculated to be 
about 25 trillion (25000000000000) miles. 

I am told by an astronomical friend that with 
one of the latest improved telescopes and by the 
aid of the modern improved methods of star- 
photography as many as one-hundred-and-fifty 
million stars may be perceived. Furthermore, a 
larger instrument in the course of development 
will probably double this amount. These stars are 
too far off for us to measure their distance from 
us by any system of parallax, but by the aid of 
the spectroscope and other improved apparatus, 



Thirty-Three Years Later 53 

whole universes seem to have been discovered as 
independent units and of an approximately disk- 
like form, rather than in spherical or irregular 
groups. It is also supposed that our own Universe 
is somewhat in the form of a flat disk. Such 
shapes would suggest that various bodies com- 
posing these universes were revolving about some 
axis and also suggest a construction which we can 
readily see, on a much smaller scale, in the rings 
of Saturn. 

The distance of some of the furthest stars that 
have been discovered seems to be something over 
one quintillion miles or, as expressed in figures, 
thus: 1 173 942 720 000 000 000. Furthermore, 
the light of some of these orbs, travelling at 
186 000 miles per second, requires something like 
200000 years to reach us; so that in gazing at 
them we really are looking away back in history. 

It is interesting to reflect that space is occupied 
with these separate universes, rather than with 
a conglomeration of stars scattered at random a 
few billion miles apart. Thus we see the vast 
apparently empty spaces between these marvelous 
disk-like groups. All of this further suggests that 
there is plenty of room out there for all kinds of 



54 Tho Material, Why Not Immortal? 

other existences than those that we know of, and 
plenty of other places for their location. 

The other conundrum: "How long is time?" 
is of course unanswerable, but we do know that it 
must take many millions of years for a planet to 
develop from a nebulous condition to a solid earth 
fitted for life; such life itself again takes long 
ages to develop into anything like humanity. It 
has recently been reported that fossil germs for 
the production of some low order of life have 
been discovered in rocks which were some 33 
million years old. We can feel sure that some- 
time our race, and all other life upon this planet, 
must come to an end, probably within a few mil- 
lion years. 

A possible melancholy condition of a certain 
English landscape is vividly portrayed in Mr. 
Wells' fanciful little book "The Time Machine," 
where the last living creatures, some sort of loath- 
some lizards, slowly crawl upon a devastated 
shore and with them all animal life has bidden 
farewell to an earthly home. The Earth has 
stopped and a small, dark-red Sun watches its 
decease. Not looking so far ahead, the eminent 



Thirty-Three Years Later 55 

and accomplished Hutton, one of the fathers of 
our modern Geology, away back in the last cen- 
tury, wrote regarding the earth's structure : "We 
find no vestige of a beginning and no prospect of 
an end." 

There have been many speculations regarding 
the inhabitability of other planets than the earth, 
and some writers have gone so far, even recently, 
as to suggest a strong probability of our little 
world being the only home of life, altho it is true 
that our physical researches in our own system 
show the probability of most of our planets (with 
the exception of the earth and of Mars) being 
either too old or too young for the support of life. 
There seems, however, to be no inherent reason 
why each one of such planets should not reach and 
maintain for a while such a condition, all at the 
proper time of its career thruout the course of 
ages. 

Furthermore, how can we conceive of the thou- 
sands of millions of suns, or some of them, not 
being surrounded with planets, as is our own sun? 
We have watched their movements, we have 
analyzed their chemical constitution and we find 
that they are made of some of the identical ele- 



56 Tho Material, Why Not Immortal? 

ments, as hydrogen and oxygen, together with a 
number of metals, which are familiar to us upon 
this earth. It is, therefore, inconceivable that 
they should not behave to a greater or less degree 
as does our sun, and should be surrounded, as he 
is, by children of their own. Assuming this, why 
should not the solidification, cooling and gradual 
life-development take place upon these planet 
offspring as well as upon those of our own sun? 
If all of this is true, we must consider many other 
possible sentient beings, akin more or less to 
humanity, who are as likely to have souls as are 
we ourselves. An amusing travesty upon such a 
speculation as this is found in Mark Twain's little 
book: "Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven." 
Such yarns are of course valueless from a scientific 
or religious point of view, but are rather sug- 
gestive regarding the immensity and character of 
space. 



CHAPTER THREE 



SOME CONCLUSIONS 

Our assumption of the possibility, or at any 
rate the conceivability, of an immortal spirit 
emanating from matter and energy by the laws 
of physics is of course open to numberless criti- 
cisms, and to almost unanswerable objections. 
The most obvious of these critical questions might 
be: "Where is the spirit world?" If we think 
of it as on this earth, it would not be eternal, be- 
cause the earth will probably disappear sometime 
into fiery gas, as it doubtless once began. If not 
here, how could there be a happy eternal home in 
the bitter coldness of space with millions of little 
meteors and larger satellites constantly flying 
around the earth and elsewhere thruout the solar 
system? If it is beyond our system we could 
hardly escape being bombarded at some time by 
other suns, and planets, and satellites, and me- 
teors, belonging to other systems. 

The only plausible solution of these difficulties 

57 



58 Tho Material, Why Not Immortal? 

might lie in placing such a future home in some 
far-off regions of space where perhaps entirely 
new conditions exist, of which we have no idea, 
and where we would not be interfered with by 
rude bodies of matter whirling at enormous 
speeds with alternations of terrific heat and cold 
down perhaps nearly to the "absolute zero." 
This, measured by the Fahrenheit scale, is about 
459 degrees minus. 

Leaving these shockingly pessimistic specula- 
tions, let us consider the idea that we may find 
many other worlds far more lovely than this — 
perhaps progressively so as time goes on. And, 
furthermore, we need fear no final end because as 
planets, and systems, and universes are born and 
live and die, new ones are preparing for us 
thruout the infinity of time and space. 

Another objection which may be offered to the 
doctrines that we are considering would be: 
"Why should not such material-made souls 
emanate from animals as well as from man?" 
This would not be difficult to conceive did it only 
concern such creatures as our lovely, faithful, 
honest and humor-loving friends, the dogs — and 
perhaps some other loyal and sensible creatures. 



Some Conclusions 59 

If, however, they are to dwell in the ranks of the 
immortals, why, logically, should not all other 
creatures, even down to the wicked tigers and the 
mean-spirited mosquitoes? We cannot conceive 
of a heaven filled with these and the innumerable 
other creatures that dwell upon this and other 
worlds. 

It would seem, therefore, that we must draw 
a line somewhere ; and it would probably be based 
on the idea of certain critical points in almost all 
realms of nature where certain things go so far 
and no further; while others, having a slightly 
better advantage, go beyond the line and enter 
entirely new realms. This principle we see in 
nature in many ways, as where a certain tiny 
stream may rush forward and grow until it be- 
comes a river, while its neighbor, a similar one, 
under the same primal conditions, dries up and 
disappears — owing of course to some change of 
environment. 

In regard to such drawing of a definite line of 
demarkation between a future life for animals 
and men, John Fiske, in his very interesting 
Ingersoll Lecture, "Life Everlasting," speaks of 
the idea held by many people that Nature is accu- 



60 Tho Material, Why Not Immortal? 

rate in all of her work, without violent leaps. In 
questioning this view he speaks of her sometimes 
making prodigious leaps, and cites a fact in con- 
nection with conic sections which obviously shows 
a peculiar jump of this kind. His description 
reads as follows : "Slowly grows the eccentricity 
of the ellipse as you shift its position in the cone, 
and still the nature of the curve is not essentially 
varied, when suddenly, presto ! one more little 
shift, and the finite ellipse become an infinite 
hyperbola, mocking our feeble powers of concep- 
tion as it speeds away on its everlasting career." 

This critical line, in the case of mankind, may 
lie somewhere between the highest apes and the 
lowest Bushmen or Hottentots ; but again we have 
another of the mysteries that we cannot solve. 
Such unsolvability surely should not discourage 
us when we consider all the other tremendous 
mysteries of Nature which are constantly and 
familiarly about us in everyday life. 

Without attempting to analyze or correctly 
define the words "immortal spirit," there are two 
essential attributes which must be present and 



Some Conclusions 61 

these are consciousness and memory. Conscious- 
ness would doubtless include will, volition and 
other functions of a happy being, but without 
consciousness there would be nothing; without 
memory a soul would have no identity and there- 
fore would not know who it was, or rather who 
it had been; neither would it recognize its friends. 
Such a doctrine has doubtless often been formu- 
lated and believed and especially, to my own 
knowledge, by a dear friend of mine, now dead, 
who was a profound mathematician and physicist 
as well as a loyal churchman. His doctrine 
seemed to me a foolish one, as of what possible 
use would our spirit life be to us if we did not 
know who we were, or who were other people 
whom we had known. We would then simply be 
new beings; and there certainly would be little 
satisfaction in anticipating here such a personnel 
for the hereafter. 

Taking a more extreme view, might not the 
whole ego, after all, consist of nothing else but a 
series of memories? If we say we're conscious 
of the now, isn't it a memory, for it takes some 
appreciable fraction of a second for an event 



62 Tho Material, Why Not Immortal? 

appealing to some one of the five senses to reach 
the brain. Thus it becomes a then. And might 
not this bunch of memories, transmitted in some 
way thru the ether, to somewhere, form the 
nucleus of the renewed and glorified spirit who 
would have an infinity in which to grow and de- 
velop by the accretion of new sensations? 

And, if in a future life we thus are so fortunate 
as to know ourselves and possess our own identity, 
then shall we not also know our loved ones and 
have an answer for our longing cry : 

"O for the touch of a vanished hand 
And the sound of a voice that is still" ? 

The doctrine of "Metempsychosis," believed 
in more generally in olden times than now, espe- 
cially by Plato and his followers, is conceivably 
true, but extremely unlikely and unsatisfactory. 
It not only includes the immortality of any animal 
or plant but embodies the loss of identity, referred 
to above as fatal to the value of a future life. 
Thus if a soul could not know who it was when 
last on earth, nor know whether previously it had 
been a turnip, or a sunfish, or an elephant, in 



Some Conclusions 63 

various stages of its existence, it would have little 
satisfaction — unless indeed it could find that some 
historian had written its full biography. 

In studying these questions we must admit the 
fact that many wise and conscientious students of 
the Cosmos, good-hearted man-loving men, have 
declared absolutely for materialism. Among 
them Metchnikoff has more mildly written, "The 
idea of a future life is supported by not a single 
fact, while there is much evidence against it." 
Aside from a very general belief among good 
people in all ages, and certainly by the tenets of 
a number of the great religions, that immortality 
is a fact, no one has ever offered logical or gen- 
uine proof thereof. The existence of such a 
general feeling and belief is a strong argument, 
but we again must give the verdict "not proven." 
We can hardly conceive of a normal-minded, wise 
and happy human being not having an intense 
longing for immortal life, altho we doubtless all 
have met with friends who have expressed them- 
selves as entirely indifferent to existence beyond 
the life of this kindly and cruel world — a world 



64 Tho Material, Why Not Immortal? 

full of "nothing but trouble and satisfaction, all 
the way thru," as a favorite uncle of mine often 
described it. 

In concluding the guess-work of our previous 
pages let us again recur to these three conceivable 
possibilties : — 

Firstly: that all things living may be mortal 
only, and that the Materialists are correct in 
their beliefs. 

Secondly: that certain portions of matter, or 
groupings and motions thereof may in some un- 
known and marvelous transmutations become im- 
mortal spirits, living forever somewhere in this 
or some other Universe, and 

Thirdly, that there exists something entirely 
outside and beyond matter and motion which we 
call "spirit," but regarding the constitution and 
location of which we can have no conception; and 
that from this will be made the souls of all human 
beings, and presumably of other similar beings 
living in myriads of other planets. 

Either the second or the third proposition is 
entirely consistent with the beliefs of Christianity 
and various other great religions. The proba- 
bility of the truth of one or the other of these 



Some Conclusions 65 

doctrines is strengthened by the very general be- 
lief in a future state of existence which has been 
so nearly universally held by all nations in all 
periods of history. 

We lack, however, positive proof of all this 
altho, especially in recent years, some perfectly 
honest people, among them eminent men of 
science, have thought that they received commu- 
nications from a spirit world. These phenomena 
may perhaps be accounted for by the problemat- 
ical and unknown science of Telepathy, so called. 
This seems to be something yet undeveloped 
about which we may learn much more in the 
future, and facilities for the practice of which may 
gradually develop in the human mind. As far as 
the faint evidence that we have goes there may 
be some vibrations from the movements in a 
human brain sent forth thru the ether of space 
which, somewhat in the manner of wireless teleg- 
raphy, start in motion certain particles of some 
other brain which happens to be adapted to re- 
spond to them, thus sending knowledge from mind 
to mind. A so-called "medium," whether hon- 
estly or not, may give out what purport to be 
sayings or signals of a departed spirit which 



66 Tho Material, Why Not Immortal? 

embody certain facts that the said medium has 
received by telepathy from the person who has the 
knowledge that is stated to be verified by the 
spirit. Of all this we doubtless may learn more 
in the future. 

It would, however, be foolish to deny the pos- 
sibility of communicating spirits existing around 
us here — as now believed by some scientists of 
the highest reputation. And may not this idea 
also be included in our galaxy of speculations? 

To my mind the strongest evidence for im- 
mortality as in the second or third of the above 
propositions lies in the existence of Evil, and the 
logical supposition that a just and merciful 
Creator will not make it permanent. We are sur- 
rounded by evil of every sort and we can but 
realize constantly the terrible cruelty of the world, 
not only of man and all other living creatures in 
constantly destroying and devouring each other, 
but in the absolute cruelty of Nature herself when 
overpowering us. Witness the cold of the arctics, 
the burning heat of the tropics, the overwhelming 
power of winds and tidal-waves and of the light- 
ning. Consider also the hundreds of cruel dis- 
eases, the births into poverty, incompetency and 



Some Conclusions 67 

crime, together with all the other ills that we see 
about us. 

When we contemplate the wonderful ingenuity 
displayed in Nature with her many glorious pro- 
ductions in plant and animal life, and the perfect 
governing of the tremendous forces in the 
heavens with millions of huge suns and planets 
whirling in their orbits in obedience to some great 
and wonderful law, we can but believe that some 
recompense will be made in the end for all of the 
suffering of living creatures thruout the Universe. 

Of God's goodness and human gratitude there- 
for, we find enormous tribute in the literature of 
the world. What, for instance, can be more 
beautiful than the lines of Whittier's hymn: "The 
Eternal Goodness," reading: 

And so beside the Silent Sea 

I wait the muffled oar 

No harm from Him can come to me 

On ocean or on shore. 

I know not where His islands lift 
Their fronded palms in air; 
I only know I cannot drift 
Beyond His love and care. 



And listen to Addison, in his "Cato" : — 



68 Tho Material, Why Not Immortal? 



It must be so, — Plato, thou reasonest well ! 

Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire, 

This longing after immortality? 

Or whence this secret dread and inward horror 

Or falling into naught? Why shrinks the soul 

Back on herself, and startles at destruction? 

'Tis the divinity that stirs within us; 

'Tis Heaven itself that point out an hereafter, 

And intimates eternity to man. 

Eternity! thou pleasing, dreadful thought! 

The soul, secured in her existence, smiles 

At the drawn dagger, and defies its point. 

The stars shall fade away, the sun himself 

Grow dim with age, and Nature sink in years ; 

But thou shall flourish in immortal youth, 

Unhurt amidst the war of elements, 

The wrecks of matter, and the crush of worlds. 

A very, very strong point for immortality 
would seem to be its avoidance of the terrible 
unfairness of the enormous mass of suffering, 
occurring sometimes entirely thruout whole lives, 
unless some recompense shall come. This idea 
has been vividly portrayed, with the remedy for 
the unfairness, in Goldsmith's "Vicar of Wake- 
field," where he makes dear old Doctor Primrose 
philosophize as follows : 

"Heaven gives to both rich and poor the same 
happiness hereafter, and equal hopes to aspire 



Some Conclusions 69 

after it; but if the rich have the advantage of 
enjoying pleasure here, the poor have the endless 
satisfaction of knowing what it once was to be 
miserable, when crowned with endless felicity 
hereafter; and even tho this should be called a 
small advantage, yet being an eternal one, it must 
make up by duration what the temporal happiness 
of the great may have exceeded in intenseness." 

May we not hope for a realization of this in- 
genious proposition — and happy will we all be if 
we can realize the power of one of the grandest 
phrases of Holy Writ, set forth by Abraham: 
"Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" 



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